Watch & Listen

Nick Doneff

Since relocating in 2013, Ontario native Nick Doneff has become a staple within the PEI music scene as a busy sideman and multi-instrumentalist. Following the December 2016 release of his debut recording, Doneff has been attracting attention for his earnest songwriting and his magnetic live performances. His song Old Dog was also recently featured on CBC’s flagship arts and culture program, Q, where host Tom Power described him as a cross between John Prine and Joel Plaskett.

Performing on the album are Nick Doneff (vocals, guitars, pedal steel, Wurlitzer piano), Josh Cavan (Wurlitzer piano), Ben Phelan (Hammond organ, Wurlitzer piano), Mark Wilson (bass), Mike Ardagh (drums, percussion), and Catherine MacLellan (vocals).
Engineering for the recording was done by Andrew Mulllin at Canterbury Music Company, Toronto, Sam Ibbett at Humber College Recording Studio, Toronto, and Adam Gallant at The Hill Sound Studio, Charlottetown. Audio was mixed by Andrew Mullin. Mastering was by Rueben Chose at Mojito Mastering, Toronto. Album design is by Nick Doneff. Cover photograph was taken by Anna Karpinski. Adam Beer-Colachino, Liam Corcoran, Nathan Gill, Mark Gedees, and Helpful Thayne are credited with “near-sober second thought.”
The 11 tracks on the CD include “Latest Hiatus,” “Easy,” “Old Dog,” “These Things Change,” “On and On,” “Jenny Jones,” “Willoughby Clay,” “Apartment Twenty-two,” “That’s Just The Deal That We Make,” “Light of Day” and “I’ve Been Alright.”
Nick performs pretty well every day of the week at numerous Island venues covering material by your favorite singer-songwriters and presenting his original music. If there’s music scheduled you’ll probably find him on the lineup.

Ida Wenøe

Amongst a digital mountain range littered with accomplished folk-ish bands and singer- songwriters, it is a rare miracle to come across a cave so rich in jewels as the one beneath Ida Wenøe’s ribcage. Clash Magazine‘s description of her sound as being “bewitching acid folk with a deeply personal edge...” and Paul Lester’s comments in The Guardian that she “sounds like the young narrator of her own magical-malevolent fantasies...” line the tape heads up nicely.

While she has an obvious appreciation of Americana, her sound is very definitely laced with more English undertones: the kind of sound Edward Woodward might have heard downstairs in the local inn had the Wicker Man been filmed in a remote Danish village, while Sarah Lund scoured for clues in her jumper. Like the best of the Nordic Noir leaving the Danish mainland, the recordings are at once both sonically pure and grimy; there’s a shared loneliness that makes you feel that you’re not at all; and all the while there is an honesty to the songwriting that tugs at your sleeve. While her grasp of English is second nature, there’s some of those intriguing turns of phrase that only a heart that dreams in another language can weave:

“The deep conceals things that are real/ look beyond the mirror/look beyond the mirror” ,
“I know we see things differently/as long as it’s not separately” and “You’re a fish in a bottle/a cock in a coop/the essence of trying...”

While still fronting the much-feted Boho Dancer the year began with a successful collaboration with Dangers of The Sea, a series of sold out supports in Denmark with Teitur, and a spate of tremendously well received shows both in London and at The Great Escape in Brighton. Now, with a deep breath in her crystal lungs those two brilliant, oxidised copper green eyes are flickering across the mixing desk once more as she records her debut solo record Time Of Ghosts, reunited with producer Jonas Tranberg who recorded Boho’s first EP. As Carsten Holm at Danish Radio P6 Beat put it, “she has an icy, almost Icelandic timbre. I haven’t heard this in any other Danish artist... an incredibly strong vocal...” God Is In The TV Zine went on to say her voice “boasts angelic notes which can often leak her endearing Danish roots...”

Sure, she has the usual credible influences from Vashti to Joni, from Neil Young to Danish folk hero Sebastian; and there’s hints of Sandy Denny and Linda Perhacs. But to list artists she sounds like would be to miss the point entirely. As anyone who has witnessed a live show can attest, Ida Wenøe is very definitely Ida Wenøe.

Press Quotes

"... a childlike fragility that makes the songs sound like whimsical folk for fairy tales with a sinister undertow. Her voice – weary but cute, with the power to cut through – is perfect; she sounds like the young narrator of her own magical-malevolent fantasies...”
The Guardian

“Bewitching acid folk with a deeply personal edge.”
Clash Magazine

“charming, delicate and forceful in almost equal measure..." Folkgeek

"... Wenøe boasts angelic notes that can often leak her endearing Danish roots...”
God Is In The TV Zine

“... the sort of voice that could punch through a cloud of custard and pierce thick air... she delicately rips through... with eyes full of hope...”
Songwriting Magazine